


old acquaintance new love

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Beer, Blow Jobs, Bruises, Charles Is a Darling, Erik is a darling, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Inspired by Music, M/M, New Year's Eve, Party, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:43:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	old acquaintance new love

title: old acquaintance new love  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)**ninemoons42**  
word count: approx. 2475  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Emma Frost, Sean Cassidy, Moira MacTaggert, Armando Munoz  
rating: NC-17  
notes: Just a little thing I cooked up for the New Year. Big thanks to both [Pangea](http://pangeasplits.tumblr.com) and [Roz](http://rozf.tumblr.com) for the enabling and the hand-holding. Looking forward to a great 2013 with fellow friends and fans!

  
By the time Erik manages to make it to Emma’s place for her New Year’s Eve party, he’s completely exhausted and in dire need of a drink.

Or an entire bottle or two.

There are lines of software code scrolling up behind his eyelids every time he blinks or winces, and he just wants to forget about being unlucky enough to be called to the office - he just wants to forget about his work, even if for just a few hours.

Except that as soon as he steps into the vast foyer he has to sidestep Emma and Moira and Armando and what looks like half of the rest of the party - they’re all chattering at him, they’re all smiling, and they all look like they’re actually happy. It leaves him badly winded, as winded as though someone’s just wound up and clocked him one, right to the back of the head, and it only makes him more determined to drown himself in the punch bowl.

He winces and tries to hand off everyone who tries to approach him, and finally manages to fight his way past the clump of people trying to learn the actual lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne”; in the process he has to say hello to Sean, unfortunately, or else the redhead will just shout at him and no one’s allowed to shout so close to the bottles of wine and beer left haphazardly on the sideboard.

Erik breathes a little sigh of relief when he dodges Raven’s attempt to slap a pair of tacky, 2013-shaped glitter-covered glasses onto his face and at last makes his way into the kitchen, where there are coolers stacked onto every available surface and there are plates of food hanging precariously off the corners of the tables.

Also in this room, apparently, nearly lost in a forest of empty glasses, is Charles.

Erik’s eyes move from the bruise on Charles’s face - big and purple and swollen, almost covering the entirety of his right cheek - and to the bottle dangling limply from Charles’s hands, and he does the smart thing: he picks up a plate of appetizers before he gets a six-pack of Stella Artois.

“Better than nothing,” he says in lieu of a greeting as he half-collapses to the tiled floor. He’s mostly within reaching distance of Charles; he can certainly pass the man some food and beer from here, but he’s nowhere near close.

He also tamps down hard on the concern and the rage that he feels because who hits people, hard enough to leave bruises; and who hits people on _New Year’s Eve_? Charles is a telepath, and Emma is on the record as saying he’s far, far stronger than she is, and if Erik is careful with his thoughts around her he’s more than doubly cautious around Charles.

The fact that he’s been attracted to the man from practically day one is just one of the reasons why he has shields in the first place.

 _Hello,_ Charles says after a long moment.

Erik winces a little. Even that mental voice sounds exhausted. He offers the appetizers and mutters, “I’ll leave if you want.”

 _Please don’t. I’m not interested in being alone, but everyone else -_ Charles waves his free hand in the vague direction of the door.

Erik nods, once. “Yes. Too loud. It’s why I’m here in the first place. It will be noisy everywhere later, as we get closer to midnight. At least this corner will be calm for a while.”

 _Oh,_ Charles thinks at him. _Long day?_

“Yes.”

_You were working today. I’m so sorry._

“Don’t be. Not your fault.” Erik glances at his beer bottle. The crown falls neatly into his hand. He takes a long, grateful swig. The beer is ice-cold and sears a line of warmth right down his nerves.

When he sighs he thinks he can almost crack a smile again.

So does Charles: Erik starts, a little, when he looks back in the other man’s direction. Charles is holding his beer bottle to his bruised cheek; there are lines of pain between his eyebrows, but he is actually smiling and that makes all the difference.

“You’re too kind to me,” Charles whispers.

“I think you deserve more than just kindness,” Erik says. “And whoever beat you up deserves more than just retaliation.”

“Please don’t,” Charles says again, this time out loud, in that same small voice. “I - it won’t be a problem any more. Really.”

“It’s your call,” Erik says. “But you have to know there are people out there who will know if you’re being bothered. There are people out there who care that you’re being bothered and will do something about it for you. If you ask.”

“Emma cares, and I’m grateful for that,” Charles says. “Half the people here whom I know and maybe even a few whom I don’t. They think about concern, but not about pity. It’s a relief, I should say.”

“Good. Also, that group of people who care includes me, just so you know,” Erik says as he takes one of the appetizers. Deviled eggs, a little too strongly spiced for his tastes but excellent all the same. He offers the rest of the plate to Charles. “Eat.”

“How can I refuse,” Charles says.

As they finish off their beer Emma comes in; she cocks her head at him and at Charles before she walks over to one of the locked cabinets and extracts a bottle that has Erik raising his eyebrows at her.

“With my compliments for the new year,” she says.

“What,” Erik says.

“I was always going to give you something like this for the holidays.” Emma shrugs elegantly. “Since the holidays are pretty much the only time when you actually aren’t allowed to turn down the things that people give you. Especially when by _people_ I mean _friends_ , and when by friends I actually mean _me_.”

A noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh interrupts her, and Erik can’t turn his head fast enough to glare at Charles.

 _Wasn’t me,_ Charles thinks, but he’s blushing.

 _I’ll deal with you later,_ Erik mock-growls in his head.

“Cute,” Emma says, but she’s smiling when she leaves. “Oh. One more thing. Try to make it upstairs to the guest rooms if you decide to, ah, retreat from the rest of us. You know where they are, Erik.”

“I have no plans of staying - ”

“Thank you, Emma,” Charles says. “For the scotch, and for - well, everything else.”

The impression of her smile startles Erik; Emma wields an impressive arsenal of social smiles, and has no qualms about deploying them against friends and acquaintances alike. This image, however, is something else entirely: artless and amused all at once. Something real.

And then Erik makes the mistake of looking back in Charles’s direction: because he’s not smiling, but he’s no longer frowning, either. At the very least, the impression of pain that Charles has been carrying around has vanished, and in its place is a sort of warmth: he is subdued, to be sure, but he is suddenly lit up, enough to nearly erase his lines and his bruise and his pain.

At this point Charles’s eyebrows go up, and he meets Erik’s eyes.

And Erik gets just a split-second to be shocked: _I -_ fuck _, I thought that out loud, didn’t I. You heard me._

“I did,” Charles says. “You think I’m - light? And you like that?”

He doesn’t look angry.

He doesn’t look sad.

He doesn’t actually look anything else other than _glorious_.

Erik wants to do several things, but taking his words back is not on that list.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Charles says, and now he really is smiling.

“Please,” Erik says, and he doesn’t know why he sounds strangled. “I - ”

“Erik,” Charles says sweetly. “Is this a good time to tell you I want you, too? That I’ve wanted you practically from day one?”

That is apparently all that Erik needs to unstick his tongue. “You never said anything - wasted so much time - come here, please, now?”

The sound of Charles’s laughter is as startling and good as it is welcome, and Erik thinks he can actually still hear it even as they crash into one another - as the first kiss, sweetly tentative, burns away the hesitation and becomes a second and a third and a fourth - as Erik slides his hands up and down Charles’s arms and someone groans loudly.

“Upstairs,” Charles gasps when they have to break apart for a snatch of breath, a touch of lucidity.

“Okay,” Erik says, and he looks down when Charles takes his hand, and he keeps staring at their fingers, and he honestly doesn’t know how he navigates the corridors of Emma’s house - a house that he’s familiar with, and one that has never seemed so labyrinthine before.

Somehow there is a door, and there is someone outside shouting “Twenty minutes!”, and Erik doesn’t actually notice anything else but the way the uncertain light of the room both conceals and reveals Charles: the scars in his skin, the freckles scattered everywhere, the hectic bright blaze of his blue eyes - nothing like the sea, Erik thinks, nothing like the daytime skies. When he looks at Charles he thinks of blue like the shadow a person casts on a snow-filled night, under flickering lights.

 _I’m fairly sure you’re exaggerating,_ Charles says as he struggles out of his layers.

“I’m very sure I don’t exaggerate,” Erik says, and if he doesn’t roll his eyes fondly it is a very near thing.

They have rolled their eyes at each other before - but all of those other times, over takeout containers or scattered pens and papers or the dregs of some really awful really cheap alcohol, are not this one.

They’re face to face, and Charles is pressed back into the wall, and his face is tipped up and his mouth is swollen and dark in the faint light. He is smiling.

 _You are beautiful,_ Erik thinks. And: _Kiss me._

Even after all of the other kisses, Charles still tastes like beer and like paprika and like heat, and Erik wants nothing more than to get lost in him, and long moments pass where he does exactly that.

He loses himself enough that he starts when Charles pushes him away - and as Erik moves Charles pulls at his shirt, yanking it off of him and tossing it away. _Better?_

Erik nods, and they both gasp when they press back together - breathless before they kiss again, and Erik can feel the runaway beat of Charles’s heart, and he’s pretty sure Charles knows everything about him, from the way his pulse is jumping with every kiss and every brush of exposed skin to the way he’s practically begging for something, for _anything_ : _More, please._

Charles meets his eyes again - Erik is sure he will never quite get over the shock of sensation that look causes in him, like a profound hammer-strike up and down every inch of his skin - and puts the fingers of one hand to his temple.

 _I - all right, yes, I can do that. I’ve wanted to do that,_ Erik thinks, and he gets down on his knees. The sound of Charles’s belt and flies undoing themselves is loud even through the cheering that is starting to drift up to them from downstairs.

Erik looks at Charles, just looks at him, naked from the waist up and partly undone from his prominent hips down, and can’t help but grin. He’s pretty sure the grin is somewhere between weird and silly, and doesn’t care.

There is a nudge at the corners of his mind: _Erik? Erik, please._

Erik doesn’t respond; he just closes the distance, he just takes Charles in, and when he does it’s _amazing_ : Charles’s quiet broken groan, the weight and heft of him on Erik’s tongue, his bitter-salty taste, musk and sweat, the rush of blood in Erik’s ears.

The helpless little noises falling from Charles’s lips are gorgeous and exquisite and Erik redoubles his efforts: lips, tongue, a careful application of teeth. He’s not so much coaxing Charles towards his edge as _demanding_ it - he wants this, he has always wanted this, and through the splinter-rush of his own need he thinks at Charles, _Come on, come on, give this to me...._

As Charles cries out quietly and spills into Erik’s mouth the voices from downstairs begin to count down: _Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight,_ and Erik thinks he might have been happy to just listen to them and listen to Charles fight for his composure, for every deep breath.

At _forty-five_ Charles _growls_ and Erik finds himself moving, his body moving independently of his mind, and when he realizes what Charles is _doing to him_ he thinks _yes yes yes please make me do what you want,_ he thinks of yelling out his consent, and all the wind is knocked out of him when his shoulders hit the wall, when Charles unfastens his trousers.

Erik is on his feet, and Charles has him boxed in, and his hand is on Erik’s cock: speed, sensation, the shouting from the rest of the house, and he can’t last, not like this, not with _Charles_ like this.

Charles leans in, brushes his lips against Erik’s cheek, and whispers, “Three, two, one, _come for me_ ,” and Erik does.

When he comes back to his senses someone is setting off firecrackers outside, and the overpowering rat-tat-tat of explosions can’t really hold a candle to the warm beat of Charles’s thoughts against his.

“Happy New Year,” Erik manages to say on the third try, because he’s still out of breath. “Also, when can we do that again?”

He laughs when Charles responds by looking at his wrist as though he were wearing a watch. “Are you going to make me wait a day or more?” Charles asks. “I hope not, because I’m thinking I’ll be ready in half an hour or less.” _Also, next time - this time - I want to make it last. I want to take my time with you._

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Erik mutters, and in his head he adds _yes please_ as loudly as he can.

He laughs when that makes Charles grin.

They drift over to the bed - Erik only makes a startled _whuff_ sound when Charles lands on top of him - and when they reach for each other it’s as if they’ve been doing this for years.

But every kiss is new, Erik thinks, and in the back of his head he hears Charles say, _Yes - and a Happy New Year to you, too._  



End file.
